In response to Wayne Lapierre And The Apocalypse, Dave Hardy writes as follows:

Here are my own thoughts. A ban on private sales will be unenforceable in the near future, since guns being found will have been initially sold before its effective date, and thus a lawful private transfer before the ban went into effect cannot be ruled out.

But even after, say, ten years pass, the ban will still be unenforceable in practice unless Congress also either:

1) Enacts national firearm registration, requiting FFLs to report all sales so they can be placed in a national database, and requires such reporting backdated to the effective date of the private sales ban, or

2) Makes firearm possession illegal, period, providing for a defense if the gun owner can prove they bought the gun before before the effective date of the ban, or bought it from an FFL after the ban.

Visit Dave’s site for the rest.  He is making a legal and technical point, one that I have seen before.  Perhaps he’s right, but be warned.  First of all, I am concerned about prosecutorial overreach and discretion.  But second, holes in any universal background check law can be plugged in the future once the basic framework is constructed.

Finally, here is the most serious warning.  I work with the federal government on at least a semi-regular basis, and when not, I am doing things that follow federal regulation, even though highly technical (the specific nature of what I do is not the subject and won’t be discussed).

For most people who never work with federal agencies and departments, ignorance is bliss.  But for those who do, they know that the nasty little secret about the federal government has to do with lawmaking by regulation.

Laws are passed by the Senate and Congress.  But after laws pass, thousands of lawyers inside the beltway go to work writing regulations based on those laws, or not, using the law as a pretext for further regulation that Congress didn’t specifically intend.  At times, Congress has even had to pass laws undoing regulations because the regulations don’t meet the intent of the law, and yet the executive branch won’t stop enforcing that regulation (or class of regulations).

Regulation is passed merely by entering them into the federal register, allowing a waiting time for public comments (which are nothing but a chance afforded to the authors of the regulations to ignore them or write sarcastic rebuttals), and then after the waiting period, it takes on the force of law including prosecution, fines and imprisonment for failure to follow them.

This happens every day, all over the nation, and in the DOT, NRC, EPA, DOJ, ATF, DHS, and other departments and agencies that the reader cannot even name and didn’t know existed.  Any law giving the executive branch the authority to further regulate firearms will be an opportunity for abuse, overreach and exploitation.

Take it from someone who has seen it.  Don’t trust the Leviathan.  It is a monster and it has monstrous intentions.

David Codrea:

The “progressive” activist group MoveOn.org posted a television commercial to You Tube yesterday featuring a self-proclaimed gun rights proponent warning politicians of electoral consequences if they don’t support more “gun control” laws.

“The six-figure ad buy is running for a week on national cable and will air during the Sunday morning political talk shows,” The Hill reported.

“I’m a gun owner and a proud defender of the Second Amendment, but for years I’ve watched Congress take money from the NRA and then oppose any kind of reform that helps keep us safe,” a man identified in the video as Ohio gun owner Jerry Thompson declares.

“After the Newtown massacre and the NRA’s disgusting response, I’ve had enough, Thompson growls, warning members of Congress if they “take money from the NRA, and then continue to do their bidding, we’re gonna remember that come election time.”

Read the rest at Examiner.  Mr. Thompson isn’t a proud defender of the second amendment any more than I’m a defender of MoveOn.org.  It’s the same story with Congressional candidates and Senators who claim that they’re NRA members or hunters.  The hair on my neck stands up when I hear a candidate for any office claim that he’s a hunter.  There’s nothing wrong with hunting.  I’ve done it before.  But that has nothing whatsoever to do with the second amendment.

And as for Mr. Thompson, the second amendment pertains to resistance to tyranny.  That’s why we know he’s lying.  On the one hand he claims to support resistance to tyranny, and on the other wants to impose tyrannical laws.

Consistency isn’t the hobgoblin of little minds.  It’s the stuff of life, and when you’re not, you’re irrelevant.

This guy finds it “disturbing that people feel they need to be armed against the government.”

He tore up his AR (Armalite Rifle, not “assault rifle”) in order to prevent nut jobs from getting hold of it.  He’s a nut job alright.  I’d say he succeeded in his goal.  One less nut with a gun.

Kurt Hofmann has a must-read article on the connection between gun confiscations and gun registration (or so-called universal background check).  It’s an issue I have been discussing for some time.  Kurt begins his article this way.

St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner is a frequent and vocal critic of the NRA (see here and here for recent examples), often wondering if the organization’s leadership is merely naively optimistic, à la Neville Chamberlain, in its dealings with the forcible citizen disarmament extremists, or actively collaborationist, à la Vidkun Quisling. Honesty requires, however, acknowledgement of effective steps the NRA does take in defense of gun rights.

Read the rest at Examiner.  Taking off on this honesty though, I have also been a critic of the NRA before, begging, as it were, the NRA to put its full force behind educating the public to the dangers of universal background checks as a pretext for and necessary precondition to a national gun registry, which is itself a precondition for gun confiscations.

Today I received a flyer in the mail from the NRA where they said exactly that.  The NRA might be frustrating at times, but they are still the largest and most powerful gun rights organization in America, and it matters what they say.  I don’t partake in pitting one organization against another.  That’s a loser’s proposition, and it’s what the enemy wants us to do.  I sincerely appreciate each organization that protects gun rights and stands against the totalitarian state.  I will correct them when they wander, and praise them when they do well.

Moving on to Wayne, he is under criticism these days, most notably for his belief in a coming apocalypse and the prudence of guns to address it at a personal level.

National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre is again under fire after penning an op-ed that claimed Americans need guns to fight off rampant gangs, terrorists and psychotics.

LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, claimed the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy showed what the future would hold, and why every law-abiding citizen needs to arm themselves.

“We saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia,” he wrote in the Daily Caller. “Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.”

Immediately LaPierre was attacked. Former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough said, “He has lost his mind,” on his MSNBC show Morning Joe, while President Barack Obama’s strategist David Plouffe called the NRA head “delusional.”

In his argument against new gun control laws, LaPierre described a world where Americans would be defenseless without guns and fall prey to everything from terrorists and Latin American drug gangs to civil unrest and looters in the wake of natural disasters. He said Americans would, in effect, be crazy not to arm themselves against the coming calamity and to rise up in protection of their Second Amendment rights.

Well, Joe Scarborough is a moron and so the balance of what he said is unimportant, but let’s consider the state of the union for a moment.

Pakistan is now our enemy.  We are withdrawing forces from Afghanistan after having lost the campaign because we wanted to wage nation-building instead of war.  Libya is now a disaster, and we left our men to perish in Benghazi with forces available to respond to their need.  Iran is headed towards a nuclear weapon and Israel is alone in her quest for self preservation.  War is coming to the Middle East, and we won’t be energy independent when it happens mostly because of the EPA.

Russia is reasserting itself unopposed in its “near abroad,” and China owns 1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasury Securities.  Our Southern border may as well not exist, and MS-13 is in every major city in the U.S., and most smaller cities, while some in the border patrol and law enforcement across America are bought off with drug money.  The cartels South of the border have morphed into transnational warlords who kidnap, extort, murder, traffic, and torture, and they’re moving North.

We’re in horrible national debt, and our unfunded liabilities reach a staggering $87 trillion.  Within ten years, the interest on the national debt will reach $10 trillion per year, the unemployment rate is still hovering around 8% or higher, the under-employment rate is still around 18% or higher, a recovery is nowhere in sight and won’t be until we get spending and entitlements under control, half of the American people don’t pay federal taxes, 47 million people rely on food stamps and that roll is growing at the rate of 11,000 per day, and the U.S. Marines are set to lose 20,000 men.

We are too broke to refuel our aircraft carriers, the administration has – for now – gotten away with walking guns across the Southern border in an effort to bolster support for gun control in America, food prices may soon soar, and amidst it all, the administration is working hard on that currently critical need to take guns away from the American people, which would of course be the catalyst for fourth generation warfare in America.

I think Wayne is on solid ground here.  In short, good flyer in the mail, good call on a former ally turned enemy, and keep it up.  As for the apocalypse, I don’t have to be told by anyone.  I’m doing my best to prepare for it.  Are you?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike Vanderboegh for the link.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David Codrea for the link.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to David Hardy for the link.

David Codrea scoops the story (before the MSM) on a lawsuit just filed by the parents on behalf of deceased Immigration And Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata.  I don’t blame them.  I wouldn’t let this go either.  It’s because of corruption that guns were walked across the border in the failed U.S. attempt to side with drug lords in their war against each other while also giving the state an excuse to enact new gun laws.

The corruption might be exposed by this lawsuit, although whether this brings it about won’t effect long term probabilities.  Long term, I just don’t believe that it’s possible to hide the truth.  The sooner everyone confesses, the better it will be, but everyone’s role will ultimately be made known.  It’s just a matter of time and light.

As a warning shot over the bow, South Carolina is poised to take action to protect the rights of its citizens.

Congratulations, you are a member of South Carolina’s “unorganized militia.” Now that you know that, state Sen. Tom Corbin, R-Greenville, wants to make sure you have access to guns in case the governor ever calls on you to defend the state.

Corbin has proposed a new state law — unanimously approved Wednesday by a Senate subcommittee — that would guarantee all members of the unorganized militia “shall have the right, at his own expense, to acquire, possess, keep, and bear all firearms that could be legally acquired or possessed by a citizen of South Carolina as of December 31, 2012.”

Translated that means — barring an almost certain constitutional challenge if the proposal becomes law — you can buy an assault weapon, regardless of whether the federal government bans them, as President Barack Obama and others have proposed.

The proposed law is based on a state law, dating back to 1881, that refers to an “unorganized militia” made up of “all able bodied persons over 17 years of age.”

“All of us here can sit back and go, ‘Finally, I don’t have to worry about giving up my shotgun or giving up my Ruger pistol or whatever. It’s over,” Corbin said. “This bill just simply says it is now part of our unorganized militia’s weaponry, therefore it is protected. … It can’t be changed by anyone outside of South Carolina.”

We had previously discussed this as a possibility, but it’s good to see that this had the unanimous support of the Senate subcommittee.  Perhaps it will pass with ease.  But wait, pointy-head has to get involved.

Nice try, but it won’t work, said Thomas Crocker, an associate professor of law at the USC School of Law who specializes in constitutional law.

It is true, Crocker said, that South Carolina can specify weapons for its unorganized militia — a concept dating back to the 18th century, when states did not have modern police forces or National Guards. States then had laws requiring everyone to own a musket and be ready to fight against outlaws or attacking Native Americans.

“The trick is if the federal government enacts an assault-weapons ban, making it illegal to have the AR-15, that will trump automatically any state law,” Crocker said. “It doesn’t matter if the state statute says that is an approved weapon. It is an illegal weapon under federal law and federal law trumps.”

Really?  Is it just that simple?  The federal government can pass any law imaginable and it trumps state laws regardless of any other considerations?  Perhaps pointy-head has been educated beyond his intelligence level.  He may be smart, but he doesn’t have a lick of common sense and he doesn’t know the very state in which he works.  I do.

Here’s a suggestion, send some federal agents to Pickens, Travelers Rest and Marietta, and up around the Jocassee Gorges, Devil’s Fork and Gap Creek areas to collect guns – that is, after you get all of the local Sheriffs to cooperate with you.  Write me a note and tell me how that goes.

Phoenix New Times:

It also wasn’t ironic that Kelly and Giffords, who overnight became the country’s two most famous gun-control advocates, are honest enough to admit that they both own guns. Giffords, as was widely reported before she was shot, owns a semi-automatic Glock similar to the one used by her assailant.

This is rich.  The country’s premier face of gun control has her own gun.  Next, consider David Codrea on Bill Maher on guns.

“The NRA should just change its name to the assassin’s lobby, because that’s what they are” TV personality Bill Maher told Tonight Show host Jay Leno on Tuesday when asked about his take on the Tucson shootings (watch segment in sidebar media player).

“I’m so tired of hearing about the Second Amendment and the Constitution,” he continued.

“If you love guns, just admit it — like it’s a vice. It’s like alcohol or drugs or sex addiction or gambling… It’s not good for you or anyone else, but you like it.”

Nice. Good, responsible men and women who as a matter of course exhibit self control are equated with degenerates who exercise none. Typical.

Finally, look who else owns a gun.

Appearing on Conan last night, Bill Maher said that enacting gun-control legislation would have little effect because Democrats are as attached to guns as Republicans. Even though he favors universal background checks and placing a limit on clip sizes, Maher, who said in the interview that he is a gun owner, concluded, “it’s not really going to change much in this country.”

Gun control for thee but not for me.  Hypocrisy is always fun for the special people.

Examiner:

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, decrying America’s demonization of guns, is predicting that the parade of new gun control laws, cheered on by President Obama, will hit the Supreme Court soon, possibly settling for ever the types of weapons that can be owned.

Scalia, whose legacy decision in the 2008 case of District of Columbia vs. Heller ended the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., suggested that the Constitution allows limits on what Americans can own, but the only example he offered was a shoulder-launched rocket that would bring down jets.

And the wily judge suggested to an audience of Smithsonian Associates at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium Tuesday night that he is not just preparing for a new gun control challenge, but that he’s softening up one of his liberal colleague on guns.

The long-time duck hunter revealed that he’s taken Obama appointee Elena Kagan hunting several times, the last being for big game in Wyoming where she shot a whitetail doe. “She dropped that doe with one shot,” he said during an event that featured questions from NPR’s court reporter Nina Totenberg.

[ … ]

Scalia explained why he wrote Heller, but wouldn’t discuss current gun control limits in Congress and the states. “There are doubtless cases on the way up,” he said, adding that limits on what weapons can be owned will likely be part of any new decision. “There are doubtless limits, but what they are we will see.”

Commentary

Good.  Let’s rock.  Let’s get on with the preservation or diminution of our rights and freedoms.  Time is wasting.  It’s time to revisit the decisions in Heller and McDonald, not because, as Justice Ginsburg thinks, there might be a reversal of Heller on the horizon with a “future, wiser court,” but because Heller didn’t go far enough.  The Supreme Court recognized our right to ownership of firearms, but didn’t specifically broach the issue of “bearing” those arms, i.e., carrying them for personal defense.

This relationship that appears to be developing between Scalia and Kagan is, I’m sure, very sweet and and all of that, but I wouldn’t count on her vote.  Furthermore, the whole issue of duck hunting concerns me.  The Second Amendment, as Scalia knows, isn’t about duck hunting, or deer hunting, or any other “sporting purpose.”  The sporting purposes test imposed by the last round of onerous firearms laws, and enforced by the ATF, is entirely unconstitutional.  I have said before that I think the test is misapplied, and that if it is a firearm, it has a sporting purpose.  But proliferation of this test through the judiciary (from some future decision) is cowardly because it doesn’t formally recognize the truth, and that is that the second amendment exists in order to ameliorate tyranny.

But for the courts, just remember that we firearms owners aren’t likely to have any more respect for confiscatory policies (or anything that can enable confiscation such as universal background checks), onerous policies (such as counting the number of cartridges I can put in my magazine), or unconstitutional tests (like sporting purposes) coming from the courts than we would if it came from the Congress or the President.  And just for the record, the Supreme Court became a laughingstock over the decision on Obamacare.  You wouldn’t want to put the final nail in the coffin holding your honor or respectability, would you?

Be very careful.  Think wisely.  Don’t start things you cannot stop.

UPDATE: Thank you for the visit on this article.  It is timely and important.

Tampa Bay Times:

Pasco SWAT team members on Tuesday broke down the door and searched an older couple’s home for their grandson. They searched for hours for Aaron Vineyard and the guns and stolen goods he allegedly was keeping, but didn’t find him or his loot in the home.

Carl Stark, 71, and his wife Juanita, 73, said they are furious that SWAT members broke into their house at 9808 Sholtz St., and shouted orders at them to get on the ground, breaking several decorations and a window in the process. They said their grandson, Vineyard, 36, lives in a trailer next door at 9812 Sholtz St., and they rarely see or speak to him.

At a news conference on Friday, Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said he stands behind his deputies’ actions. Before the Tuesday night SWAT raid, he said, investigators were working with an informant to bring down a 12-man crime ring of which they believe Vineyard is a member.

Nocco said his men weren’t taking chances when they decided to search the home Tuesday night. The SWAT team got the house they meant to, he said.

“I have no regrets in the operation that was performed,” Nocco said. “The fact that we put safety first, we’re not going to apologize for that.”

[ … ]

Sheriff’s spokesman Doug Tobin said SWAT members’ actions “ensured the safety of all of those inside the house and deputies executing the search warrant.”

Safety first.  Whose safety?  The safety of his officers.  In fact, the spokesman is lying.  This wasn’t safe for anyone.  No one benefited from these tactics, no one was caught, no evidence was flushed down the toilet, the police don’t know that the parents were connected in any way to the son’s activities regardless of what they say, and a lot of home wares were broken.

The better approach would have been to position detectives to find out when the son left his home, arrest him out in the open daylight, and execute a search warrant on the parent’s home by uniformed officers.  The fact that a SWAT team was used to do this is a testimony to stupidity and thuggery.

Moving West, the following home invasion has some instructive value for us.

Ten armed men stormed into a home early Sunday morning demanding money and drugs.

The home invasion happened at a home in Edinburg around 1:30 a.m.

According to Edinburg Police, the gunmen demanded money and drugs.

An eyewitness told Action 4 News that the suspects were dressed in black shirts that said “S.W.A.T.” on the front.

This is a continuation of what we have observed before.  Home invasions are increasingly being perpetrated by multi-man teams.  Furthermore, they are frequently impersonating police officers.

Listen, LEOs (Ahem, I know you like to be called operators, but you’re not really operators.  My son was an operator when he engaged in combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq.).  I have no idea who you are when banging starts on my front door in the middle of the night.  That’s one reason I have guns.  Even if you dress and act like law enforcement, I cannot trust that because you might be a multi-man team impersonating law enforcement.

Do you see why I must return fire?  Do you understand that if you ever do this to my home you will enter to a hail of bullets that your Kevlar won’t stop?  Do you understand why it isn’t safe for you or me to conduct such stupid operations?  Do you understand why you should see yourself as a peace officer and use detective work instead of this kind of thuggery to enforce the law?  Do you understand that I cannot simply lay prostrate and allow anyone to do anything in my home because you have guns?  It is my duty to protect my family.  Do you understand that the safest approach is for you to return to being peace officers and leave room clearing in my home to me?

Do you understand?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike and David for the attention.

UPDATE #2: Want an example of the attitude I’m talking about?  Take a look at Law’s comment on this article.  Near the end of the comment thread.

Via Instapundit, Joe Manchin in his words:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday that he opposes an assault weapons ban.

Speaking on MSNBC, Manchin, who has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association and in December called for federal action to reduce gun violence, said he thinks there’s a better way to reduce mass shootings without introducing new restrictions for gun owners.

“I do not support an assault weapon ban because the definition of assault weapon is still hard to come by,” Manchin said. “So I am not going to comment on people’s legislation. I do not support that approach right now.”

Manchin is part of a quartet of legislators working to tighten background checks required to purchase a gun. The other members of the group are Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

Of course, the fact that the definition of assault weapon is itself defined in the legislation (an example of circular reasoning) is a ridiculous reason for not supporting it.  But of course, Joe is lying.  The real reason that he isn’t supporting a new AWB is because it cannot pass.  The real reason he should oppose it is because it is unconstitutional and immoral, though Joe isn’t too worried about trivialities like that.

What Joe is doing is working with totalitarians to enact universal background checks, thus setting up a national gun registry.  I expect this out of Joe.  I am saddened to see it out of Eric and Paul.